Vietnamese New Years

On February 14 was Vietnamese/Chinese New Years and also Valentine's Day. When it's Vietnamese/Chinese New Years some people don't mention that it's also Vietnamese New Years they probably think it's only Chinese New Years. This year is the year of the Tiger (rawr). Happy New Years in Vietnamese is Chúc Mừng Năm Mới and you probably know how to say it in Chinese Gung hay fat choy. Vietnamese New Years is my favorite day because I get money.

On New Years Eve my mom,sister, and I went to Church. During church I sat there and listened to all the usual stuff. After mass there was going to be a food and entertainment. We went to get food and find some seats before it gets crowded. There were people performing music and singing. The priest went up and sang while he gave out red envelopes to the younger children. The older kids went up to receive red envelopes, including me. The priest had a lot of red envelopes left and some adults went up to get one. I got four lucky dollars.

It was New Years, we went to San Jose to look around at this Vietnamese festival around eleven o'clock. There wasn't anything good or interesting in there. The place wasn't crowed at all because we were early and people should be arriving at noon. We looked around and all they had was a few people selling music and food. In the middle people would be advertising their stuff. In the back there was a mini carnival and my sister and I went browsed the area. They didn't have any good games or prizes and it was mostly for kids. In the very back I saw people practicing dirt biking and it looked awesome. We only walked around for an hour and we started leaving the festival and when we got to the exit a lot of people were entering the festival at noon.

We went to get lunch at the Lion Plaza which is good place to do firecrackers. I haven't been here in a couple of years and it was crowed with people gambling. The most common Vietnamese gambling game (I don't know what it's called in English) involves a board containing a fish, crab, shrimp, deer, jug, and a rooster. The dealer has 3 dices with those 6 items and they cover the dices and shake it. You bet what ever how much money you want on any of the six items before they reveal the dices. If you bet $1 on crab and get one dice on it, your money doubles, two dices add another dollar, three dices add another dollar ending up with $4. I wanted to bet one of my lucky dollar for fun and I won $2. We went to eat some phở (delicious beef noodle soup) and we bought our food and while we were buying our food I bought some cheap fire crackers for $5 for the long roll. My sister and I went to the middle of the plaza where people throw their fire crackers There were so many people throwing fire crackers and it was loud. Some people were crazy to hold it while its popping. I went to light my set and when I lite it my guy walked in front of it. He got hecka scared and started to dance. After my sister and I went to go gamble some more. I was on a wining spree with $1 and won $8 but I should have stopped after because I started to get addicted. I decreased slowly losing my money and won another $5. I stopped because I started to lose one after another and ended up losing $7. We went home and I received more money from my parents. I got about 200 lucky dollars.